Editorial: New fee on solid ground

Reducing the government’s personnel costs is a painful but necessary exercise in a city without the kind of growth that can sustain as large a workforce as it once did, without additional tax increases. But there are benefits, as well, in the proposal before the Memphis City Council Tuesday to return to a monthly solid-waste fee of $25.05 to pay for new trucks and recycling bins.

The measure would allow the purchase of new equipment to make sanitation crews more efficient, convert a large section of the city to single-stream recycling, meaning recyclables would be sorted at the recycling facility rather than by residents, save on landfill fees and reduce future demands for landfill space.

An additional provision would close a major gap in the retirement plan for an aging crew of sanitary workers. Residential customers would be charged for discarding larger items that don’t fit in garbage or recycling containers, such as furniture and yard debris.

The ability to discard anything we don’t want on the curbside without cost has been a delightful privilege in Memphis. But it has become obvious during recent budget deliberations that there are some government services that the government, with its limited resources, can no longer afford.